Due to rising goods traffic as a result of general and mixed cargo journeys, truck or container transports, sea or air freight parcel transports within the framework of e-commerce and online mail order offers, the number of transport goods and, in particular, of packages and consignments has significantly increased. Although it is nowadays possible that an order can be placed online independently of conventional store opening times, the delivery of the order as a consignment to the consignee is made almost exclusively by traditional delivery methods, for instance by mailmen or, in the case of packages, by motorized delivery vehicles, and substantially only within store opening times. If the consignee cannot be located at the time of delivery, for instance because he, as an employed person, is pursuing his work within store opening times, either an attempt is made to deliver the consignment on a further occasion, or the consignment is deposited in a branch of the delivery company for collection by the consignee. Although for some time the possibility has existed of depositing consignments at a collection point, for instance in a DHL Packstation, such collection points are not yet widely available and thus not in all cases an alternative.
Very recently, trials have therefore been undertaken to deliver consignments to the consignee or the collection point with unmanned transport devices, for instance with an unmanned flying machine, also referred to as a parcelcopter or drone. In these trials, a receiving container is normally used to receive the consignment, to which the transport device can carry the consignment or from which the transport device can fetch the consignment. After the consignment has been carried by the transport device to the receiving container, which is installed, for instance, in the front yard of a house of the consignee or is provided for an urban district for a plurality of consignees, the consignment can be removed from the receiving container also outside store opening times.
In the aforementioned trials, the actual transfer of the consignment from the unmanned transport device to the receiving container has proved particularly difficult. For instance, a “dropping” of the consignment from the transport device to the receiving container is not possible, in order not to damage fragile consignments.